1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for resetting electrical breakers, and more particularly, to systems and methods for resetting electrical breakers without user intervention.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electrical wiring found in homes and industry typically includes multiple circuits each protected by a circuit breaker. The circuit breaker's primary function is to provide protection against fire or electrocution resulting from a short or other wiring problem in the circuit. Additionally, circuit breakers provide a means for temporarily removing power from a circuit so that it may be safely worked on by an electrician or technician.
Circuit breakers may trip for any of a number of reasons, ranging from excessive load, e.g., too many appliances in operation at the same time, to dangerous electrical problems such as a short circuit. Usually, simply resetting the breaker is all that is required when the fault is caused by appliance load or random power spikes. However, faults caused by electrical wiring problems need to have the cause diagnosed and corrected before resetting the breaker.
Generally, circuit breakers are positioned in out-of-the-way and sometimes not easily accessible areas of homes and commercial buildings, thus, when a circuit breaker trips due to a wiring problem or needs to be opened so that an electrician can safely work on the circuit, it can be a time consuming task to locate the circuit breaker and manually place the breaker into the desired operational mode (e.g., open or closed) for lockout/tagout.
One application where an automatic breaker reset solution is most useful is in the Railroad Signal Industry. In this industry, the electrical equipment, e.g., lights, signals, movable barricades, etc., are often place in remote locations; often quite distant from one another and from any monitoring station. Circuit breaker boxes are generally scattered throughout the rail network and thus for minor circuit trips it would be highly inconvenient to require technicians to manually reset the tripped breaker. Therefore, an automatic breaker reset system would increase convenience, and reduce costs and equipment downtime by requiring technicians to respond only to severe or reoccurring circuit trips.
Automatic breaker reset systems are commercially available, however these systems can only be used with specially designed circuit breakers and are generally quite costly to install. Such systems are not feasible for installation in homes or as an add-on to an existing circuit breaker system.